← The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
#738: Building marketing strategy when change is the constant with Heidi Bullock, Tealium
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- [00:01]
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Greg Kilstrom
Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and Martech platforms as we explore marketing technology, AI, E commerce, and whatever's next for the omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand Podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information, go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest episodes, please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. Now onto the show. Successful marketers are able to anticipate and act on opportunities and trends. But what happens when the next 10 days can be as difficult to predict as the next 10 years? Agility requires not only rapid responses to changing market conditions, but also the ability to anticipate and proactively shape those conditions to your advantage. It's no longer enough to react, you have to predict and influence. Today we're going to talk about navigating the uncertainties of the current digital advertising environment and maximizing ROI when forecasting feels
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like gazing into a crystal ball.
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To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome back to the show
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Heidi Bullock, CMO at Telium. Heidi, welcome back to the show. I think we're episode three here, so
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Heidi Bullock
yeah, yeah, three is a charm. Thanks for having me Greg.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, always. Always love talking with you and looking forward to this. For those that haven't caught one of your earlier shows, why don't you give a little background on yourself and your
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Heidi Bullock
role at Telium Yeah, sounds great. So I've been at Tealium. I think I'm coming up on my six year. So yes, CMOs can stay in jobs longer than year two years. And I've really been focused on making sure that obviously we're growing the business, we're creating pipeline, but a big aspect of that I think is telling the right story to the right audience and so obviously using data to do that. So that's what we'll talk about more today. But that's really kind of how I think about my job. It's, yes, it's driving growth, whether that's net newer in the customer base, but it's never just a set of tactics. It's making sure that you understand what your buyers want and like we said, delivering that to them on the channels that work the best for them.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. So let's, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about a few, a few things today. I want to start with, you know, there's a lot of talk about uncertainty in the market and you know, insert market here, whichever one you happen to be talking about. So, you know, there's, there's a, there's a lot of talk about that. You know, despite continuously improving technology, certainly a lot of things have come out, you know, AI related, you know, the predictive technologies. It seems like the world keeps getting harder to predict. What effect is this having on CMOs and other marketing leaders?
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Heidi Bullock
Well, I think therapy bills are going up, but no, just kidding. I, I think being a CMO these days, or I would say, you know, not just a cmo, but any executive role is probably never been more challenging just because I think there's so many technologies to stay on top of. There's a lot of pressure obviously to make sure that the business is successful. But I like to say, don't panic, we'll make things practical. And I think for me, the thing I try to do is always go back to the basics and say, look, at the end of the day you have to know your buyer. And to me, doing that through not only what they tell you, which is great, but we know that sometimes buyers lie. You can ask customers, did they have a great experience? And they're like, sure. Just like at a restaurant. We've all said that dish is amazing. And deep down you're like, that's the worst thing I've ever had. But really understanding their behavior through their data and having a good first party data strategy, that's the first thing I would tell people. Listening. I think the companies that can do that well will continue to drive growth and be successful. And sometimes the, the, this, the tip is really just get started. You know, I talk to a lot of large enterprises and I think the ones that are doing the best recognize that they've invested there. And I see, you know, the opposite when companies, you know, they're, they, they, they make it such a hard exercise that they almost never get going. And like you said, the world is moving fast and so they, they slowly and you know, actually probably more quickly start to fall behind. So I think the key is first party data strategy and really just get going, don't wait on it.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. And so to, to do that and to, you know, to better understand customers with this first party data strategy. You know, what is it, what does that mean about making choices and sometimes tough choices about customer data and technology and platforms, you know, so that they can maximize roi? Like what should they be thinking about there?
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Heidi Bullock
Yeah, I like that question a lot because I think a mistake that I see a lot of people make is they think technology is the answer. Right? They think, okay, I'm going to buy this particular platform X. I mean in the past it could have been marketing automation, it could be, you know, what you can really think about all the different trends and I think technology is nine times out of ten, never the problem. It's really making sure that, that you have the, you know, really what your clear goals are. Hey, our goal is to really impact retention this year, you know, be clear on what those goals are. And two have, I would say, you know, a center of excellence or a team of people that probably, you know, could involve your IT team, legal team, your marketing data teams and make sure that everybody is aligned on that goal, the timeframe and then really bring in the technology. And I think that often the mistake people make is leading with the technology purchase. That's really what I see. But that being said, I think then thinking through if you've got those things in order, I really do like technologies like a CDP that can help you collect data, bring all that data together and making sure that it's transformed, enriched and then being able to activate that data. And I think what's powerful about that is it will work with your cloud data warehouses. And I think a lot of your listeners, everybody has for the most part a cloud data warehouse at this point. But I think a CDP can complement it where it's really making sure that all those signals are being collected and activated in real time. And we'll probably get into this, but that's really important when it comes to privacy.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, definitely. And I totally agree that. I mean, platforms have such a powerful role to play and data has such a powerful role to play. But I think, you know, people, the processes are, they're often the things that can make or break it. Right.
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Heidi Bullock
So percent it's just like thinking you're going to have a, you know, a better year ahead if you go on a crazy shopping spree. Probably not. It'll feel good in a minute. But you know that your new dress or whatever is not going to fix everything. So it's, you've really got to start with the people.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. So I also want to talk about, you know, certainly marketers from a, from an internal company perspective are dealing with a lot of change and volatility. But also, you know, customers are changing and this require. And, and they adapt to some of the. Some of the same and, and as well as different external factors. This means we need to be agile with how we target audiences and how we understand those are audiences. So with a lot of uncertainty about that as well, how can marketers stay nimble and ensure that their messaging is staying relevant and resonates with audiences knowing that there's change in the air?
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Heidi Bullock
Yeah, and I, and I think, you know, I have a really interesting story for you. One of our customers who is using Telium and in the CDP really did a pretty big analysis and it answers this question perfectly. They historically had collected a lot of, you know, historical data and then they also did a comparison with data that they collected in real time in. In just, let's say a period of a day, different time increments. And they found that data that they collected within, you know, 30 seconds was more telling than data they collected on key buyers over 10 years. Wow. So the key is really making sure that you can collect and understand that data in real time. And what I mean by that is you can start to see. Let's do some message testing as simple as this, you know, on your website, being able to deliver multiple messages for a particular segment and seeing which performs better or even, hey, we see this particular segment tends to really click on this offer versus something else. Or they're looking at these channels maybe on meta over something else and just having that, I think in real time and being able to stay agile is. It's essential, especially in the consumer world. And I would argue it's becoming more of that in B2B as well. But we were blown away when they were talking through that with us because they're actually Doing a lot of predictive modeling and using, they have their own large language model and they're using Tealium data to inform that. And that was the experiment. They're like, wow, the data we collected today is performing better and is more useful than 10 years of historical data. So the message to folks is just make sure that you have a way of understanding those signals in real time. Because as you know, I mean you're a buyer's behavior. You might say we're at work and of course we're all focused perfectly. But me, you're doing a little side propping and you purchase something you don't want to be for that the next day for with a discount, you're like, I already bought that item. So again, I would just really stress that the ability to have real time data, especially the ability to use and understand first party data, not data that you're purchasing to create better and more relevant messages, understand that the channels, et cetera.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, I mean I think that's also really powerful because I mean there's, there's a cost to that long term data. You know, it's, it's, I mean some of it is yes, storing it in the data warehouse or whatever, but there's also the technical debt of maintaining and understanding and even, you know, you could call it operational debt or there's all kinds of debt that could be associated with that or even just the legacy of people holding on to, oh well, three years ago we did this thing and it worked this way. And so, you know, what you're saying is really powerful in that there is so much benefit to the nearer and real time, near real time data that you know, it doesn't mean you throw out the legacy data, you know, per se, but it does mean that there's a lot of value in speed and flexibility and, and the, the closeness of the data. Right, Correct.
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Heidi Bullock
I mean even think about, you know, there might be especially like in the travel space there's something that could impact a flight and that will change somebody's preferences. Maybe there's, you know, even the weather, something that there's no way historical data could have really helped in, in that particular case. So I just think that having people think through that is really important. And you're exactly right. It doesn't mean you want to get rid of all the historical data, but I think it's just understanding that you really need to marry those two together to get a full picture of your buyer.
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Greg Kilstrom
And so Telium has had some pretty impressive results with your conversions API. I Wonder if you could just talk a little bit about that. Some numbers, 25% boost in ROAS, and some other things. Could you maybe talk about what is it and how it can deliver such significant returns?
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Heidi Bullock
Yeah, well, it's a magical technology that I can't. No, just kidding. It's a server side method, so instead of a client side method to send conversion and event data to your ad platform, and it does that without depending on third party cookies. And so you get a lot better, you know, matching you and the signals obviously are clearer. And what's important about that is, you know, without that type of technology you as a marketer have, it's almost like you're flying blind. You don't have the understanding of, you know, exactly what has happened in a, in a cycle and all the key steps which you want to understand, you actually can then end up also spending way too much on ads. And with capi, you can see, oh, this was my, my conversion path. You can then kind of shift dollars and optimize for that so you're not wasting money on, you know, ad platforms. And we see, you know, basically every single company that implements this and there are multiple cappies that people can put in place, just the savings and the benefits are. And you said, you know, 25% improvement on ROAS. That's, that's one stat. We see some that are a lot more significant and even some companies that I would say are very dialed in still will see improvements. And it's a little bit dependent on the ad platform. But one of the things that we talk about, and this is really just us trying to be helpful to our customers, is like, this is the first and foremost thing you should do if you're, I mean, and with your listeners too. If there's one thing you want to do for the rest of the year and you are an organization that spends money on Google, Meta, LinkedIn. This is by far a key thing to do because you'll just, you'll have such a better sense of what's working and then you can obviously also, for me, report back on that. So it's not just like, oh, we're spending these ad dollars. It's a little bit black box. It's like you could say, no, like, our spend was much better here and for these segments. So it's, it's a really critical thing for people to look at.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, a lot of the focus, and rightfully so, of investing in technology is from, you know, the marketing team or the, you know, the teams Using the products and what they need to do their jobs most effectively. But I wonder, you know, from that end consumer, you know, the end customer's perspective, you know, what are they looking for in the technology that brands they support utilize? And you know, what, what gets lost here and sort of the, the internal focus on, you know, let, let my, let me and my team do our jobs better. You know, what, what are consumers really looking for that that might be missed?
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Heidi Bullock
Yeah, for me, I think. And if the question is, you know, if somebody's purchasing technology, what do they look for in a vendor? Like, what do they feel is missing? I can tell you my personal, just what I see over and over. I personally buy a lot of technology as well. And so sometimes when I'm speaking to somebody and it's like anything's possible. And I think what I see from a lot of companies, they're marketers or technologists, they're very smart, but they're very, very busy and they, and they're juggling a lot as we talked about, more than ever. And I think my take is that folks want to work with a vendor who like say, you're working with me. And I said, greg, this is the first thing that you should do if you implement this technology. It's almost like they can be a trusted advisor, provide experience. Because again, like, I know for myself, like we work with so many different large enterprises. It's a shame if I can't help other companies and share some of that knowledge. Obviously I never list the name of the companies, but I can say like, hey, we get started. Wow, it looks like you're spending so much here on these key ad platforms. Let's put some cappies in place. Step one, right? Like somebody that can provide that insight versus like it's all possible, which is great. And I think a lot of vendors, they want to be able to showcase their platforms. All the things are amazing. But at the end of the day, people need clear steps. It's like you don't want to say, you know, what do you want to eat for lunch today? I don't know, it doesn't matter. It's like we want to both agree that we're going to go get tacos and they're going to be great.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think just it's in everyone's, but I mean it's even in the end consumer's best interest. But it's in everyone's best interest in that scenario that they start somewhere and they start somewhere focused and you know, everything needs to prove its value over time and, you know, and, you know, getting internal adoption. A lot of this is kind of back to our earlier point. Even though it's software purchasing, it's also change management from the people side. So like having a strong use case that you start with, even if it's only a fraction of what the platform can do, because, you know, most, a lot of platforms can do a lot of things, but, you know, starting with that strong use case can be, you know, be a really powerful way to start.
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Heidi Bullock
I agree. And it really helps build everyone's, you know, that I feel like the, the company then has trust in, in the vendor, which is important, and, and it, it's helping them get that internal win. So it's like, look, this investment made sense and now we can start to, you know, climb the mountain and look at, at other use cases. But I just think being, you know, that trusted advisor and helping people narrow in so they can have success because again, those individuals are reporting up to executives and have to show for this investment. Look, here's the return. We're making those business changes and driving that impact. So I think helping people in that process, because a lot of folks like this may not be something that they do all the time. So it's our job to help there.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of, you know, trust, maybe a different kind of trust, but you know, data privacy, you touched on this briefly earlier, but I want to get back to that as well because this is another one of those areas, areas where we all kind of know that it needs to be addressed. Some, some are more expert in consumer data privacy and depending on the industry and all that stuff as well. But, you know, everyone knows that it's needed. But a lot of people at brands, you know, even if they're working in the healthcare or financial services or whatever, they may not know the, the nitty gritty stuff that they really need to understand. You know, how. How do brands balance this need for personalized advertising? You know, we know that, we know that it works. We know that it's powerful. But, you know, while still balancing that with consumer data privacy concerns and regulations, regardless of what they are.
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Heidi Bullock
Right. I mean, it's, I'd say it's a, it's really important and it's a big challenge. And I feel that, you know, we in the United States, it's, it's been a little bit slower than say, like, you know, Germany, Canada, you know, we at Chile. I mean, we are a large global organization. So I feel in a way fortunate that this was something that we really prioritized early on. But I think one of the biggest things that people can do is again, it goes back to having a first party data strategy where you know people, you're making it easy and a straightforward path for them to provide the right information versus, versus purchasing it. That data will be better. I feel like it just, you can do a lot better marketing. But the key, again, this is probably the number one reason for me for companies looking at, you know, technology, it's, it's making sure that you can collect customer data in real time and then again making sure that that data really can be activated in real time as well. What I mean by that is you can think about consent status. So say Greg, you opt into something, you buy a cool pair of shorts, you're going on vacation and you're like, great, I'm happy to get mobile messages from this company. But then halfway through your trip, you're like, you know, I'm drinking margaritas on the beach. I don't really want to get messages from that brand. And then you say, I want to change that. You need a technology that can update that consent status in real time across all the key channels that you're choosing to opt out of. And that's to me, you know, I think that's one of the most critical reasons for people to look at CDPs, because again, the reality is companies can get fined a lot of money. We see it every, every morning I get this one email that's just around like privacy and it's like, here's the latest find from this company. And so it's, it's just one of those things people have to really take seriously. And then when people have opted in and really you can start to build that trust. I think that's when you know, it makes sense to use data in the way that they've given you permission for personalized experiences. But, but it's like dating, it's a dance. And companies have to respect that because I think the tolerance around it is just really, it's going down. People just, they really expect those preferences to be upheld and not just when they're first given, but throughout that entire journey.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, and I think it's one of those things, I mean, I know there was, there was a lot of press around some of the stuff when the third party cookie, you know, the cookie apocalypse, you know, happened and then it was delayed and that was delayed. But, but I mean what you're know, that's a timeline and that'll Happen when it happens or, or not, or. You know, I know requirements have shifted a little over the years, but this is still very real. And you know, a first party, I mean there's, there's two components. I mean, one is the data privacy and regulations part of it. To your point, companies are getting fined, consumers are, you know, potentially could lose trust based on that. Plus, I mean, first party data just works too, right?
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Heidi Bullock
Yeah, it's just better. I mean that's kind of my message to people. It's like aside from the, you know, it's a better practice, but it's like you can be a better marketer. Imagine that. It's like what the marketing you can do is actually higher quality. So for me, I feel like it's a win win. And I recognize there's companies that are like, no, we don't have the time or there's always a reason, but I just think it's, that's where the world's going and it's important to think through that strategy and having one as a company.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. So as we wrap up here, a couple last questions for you here. But we've been talking about change and adapting to change this whole time. What would your advice be to leaders who there's some key platform and people decisions coming up for them that are going to impact them and their teams? What would your advice be to them? To balance, you know, change with maintaining performance and really just kind of keep an eye for the future.
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Heidi Bullock
Right. I mean, I think what I would say is that, and we talked about this a little in the beginning, it's easy to put off hard things, but the best thing folks can do is just jump in and I think kind of go through what we just talked about, make sure it's clear. Just write down and be clear with your kind of key data team, like whatever that center of excellence team is. Here's what our goals are. Maybe for this coming year. We really want to improve retention in a key segment. We want to grow this other one. We want to drive some business in Latin America, whatever that is, be clear on those goals, then think through the people and really what are the best use cases for us to then start to get going. And then to me then it's really a technology decision. But I think by putting that off, what I see unfortunately is those companies just fall further behind because the companies that are acting quick and just doing it, they're really. So they're, they're quite successful and, and they are growing and they have a lot of good business results to, to talk about. So I think it doesn't have to be scary. And another thing I would say is just find another organization maybe that is similar to you and talk to some of those leaders, see what they've done and where they've maybe failed so you can learn from that. That's something that I always personally try to do. It's like, here's another leader, similar situation, company size, people are very willing to help you and tell you what to avoid, I think.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm always surprised that, I mean, I guess I talk to people quite a few times a day, but I. Outside of the podcast, I'm always surprised at how forthcoming so many people are and just willing to learn. I mean, again, I feel lucky I get to learn from every conversation I have for the show, but also just every conversation that I have, I learned something.
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Heidi Bullock
So yeah, yeah, people like to help. They do.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Heidi, thanks so much for coming
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back on the show.
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Always, always great to talk with you. One last question for you. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
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Heidi Bullock
Yeah. So I make it a personal goal of mine as you, as you highlighted, just to always stay as current as possible. I think my number one piece of advice for people is listen to podcasts. It's just the freshest, most current information. And then I always set aside a part of my week and then budget to test and look at new things. And some of them are going to work and some are not. But you have to be somebody that's always trying because I've just been delighted at some new technologies that I've tried or just even new approaches to things. And it's. But you have to set aside some money and time to do it.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
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Heidi Bullock
And no one, no one is going to open it up for you. You have to do it yourself.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, totally. Love it. Well, again, I'd like to thank Heidi Bullock, CMO at Telium, for joining the show.
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You can learn more about Heidi and Tealium by following the links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to the Agile brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the show@theagilebrand.com that's theagile brand.com and contact me. If you're interested in consulting or advisory services or are looking for a speaker for your next event, go to www.gregkillstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.
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